You’ve just gone through a break up and somewhere along the line you couldn’t distinguish whether you were eating a tub of ice cream or a bowl of cereal. Things got a little messy, but wipe those eyes of yours. The redemption of your independence is coming.
Here are the five steps of loss and grief, and how they’ll guide you through your breakup.
You know things are going south in your relationship. Rather than talk about it and finalize the breakup, you’d rather avoid it all together. You convince yourself that everything is fine or will be fine. You’re completely blind to any problems with the relationship, and those that you do realize are deemed “fixable” or “minor.” When you really start to think something’s wrong, you try to make yourself unavailable to your partner. They can’t break up with you if they can’t see you right?
You keyed his car, or maybe you just blew him up on Facebook and Instagram. All your couple photo captions now read, “Me and my cheating ex <3.” You suddenly become a pyromaniac, burning photos and love notes in a frenzy to destroy any evidence that the relationship ever existed. You take all his stuff out of your apartment and donate it to Goodwill, smiling cheerily to the staff.
You two have already broken up, but maybe things can be fixed? You make a last ditch attempt to fix things. You promise to do more and be better than ever before. You even suggest that you’re finally ready to go on that expensive trip he’d been wanting to go on. When did that become a good idea?
Things are over, officially now. After your attempt at bargaining without results, you know now that there’s no hope for reconciliation. You’re done with the resentment you felt before. Now you just feel crushingly alone. It’s time to cry it out and take your time with this one. No one is rushing you to get over it. Don’t let anyone diminish the importance of your feelings.
One morning you wake up and you feel different. The feeling of dread you’ve felt in the mornings seems somewhat lighter. You go on with your day, which is actually kind of … good. The sadness that’s been crippling you has somehow loosened its grip. You feel yourself getting back to normal. You think to yourself, “The past is in the past. The future is mine. I think I might go on a hike today.” The beginning of the rest of your life has started and nothing is holding you back anymore.
